Secret Service study says school shooters showed warning signs

Most were bullied, had disciplinary trouble and displayed concerning behavior that wasn’t reported.

WASHINGTON — Most students who committed deadly school attacks over the past decade were badly bullied, had a history of disciplinary trouble and their behavior concerned others but was never reported, according to a U.S. Secret Service study.

About the study

In at least four cases, attackers wanted to emulate other school shootings, including those at Columbine High School in Colorado, Virginia Tech University and Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.

The study by the Secret Service’s National Threat Assessment Center is one of the most comprehensive reviews of school attacks since the Columbine shootings in 1999. The report obtained by The Associated Press looked in depth at 41 school attacks from 2008 through 2017.

Why it matters

The information gleaned through the research will help train school officials and law enforcement on how to better identify students who may be planning an attack and how to stop them before they strike.

“These are not sudden, impulsive acts where a student suddenly gets disgruntled,” Lina Alathari, the center’s head, said in an AP interview. “The majority of these incidents are preventable.”

Nearly 40 training sessions for groups of up to 2,000 are scheduled. Alathari and her team trained about 7,500 people during 2018. The training is free.

Since the Columbine attack on April 20, 1999, there have been scores of school shootings. Some, like Sandy Hook in 2012, were committed by nonstudents. There were others where no one was injured. Those were not included in the study.

For the report being released Thursday, investigators reviewed instances in which a current or recent student purposefully used a weapon to kill at least one person.

What to monitor

There’s no clear profile of a school attacker, but some details stand out: Many were absent from school before the attack, often through a school suspension; they were treated poorly by their peers in person, not just online; they felt mistreated; some sought fame, while others were suicidal.

The key is knowing what to look for, recognizing the patterns and intervening early to try to stop someone from pursuing violence.

“It really is about a constellation of behaviors and factors,” Alathari said.

GETTY IMAGES 2018 The study by the Secret Service’s National Threat Assessment Center looked in depth at 41 school attacks from 2008 through 2017. Most are said to be “preventable.”